Railcar 14 failed this morning. I didn’t have time to look for the fault before going out to work but I investigated when I got home at lunchtime.

The problem was a loose wire connecting one of the bogies to the motor so I tried soldering it back on… And ended up melting the bogie! No bother, I was never really happy with 14’s appearance so it has had a trip to Cuarto Sheds where it was rebuilt as a four wheeler.

The body is now mounted much lower. Luckily the wheelbase is such that both axles are underneath where the passenger seats are located, allowing the compartment floors to be dropped between them affording easy access for passengers. I was tempted to give the railcar a repaint in blue, to match number 21, but decided that the battered look suits it better, as seen awaiting passengers for the mid-afternoon stopping train from San Fernandez to Ciudad Grande.

Meanwhile, much further south in Puerto del Sastra, I have finally got around to building the footbridge over the station. The longer central span is of plate girder construction and the two outer spans have I-beams that will support wooden parapets. This bridge is not supposed to be part of the station but to maintain the right of way along an ancient Inca Road which crosses the site. It also provides a convenient exit to fiddleyard.

While on my way to Crewe with the van this morning I stopped off at Haslington Models to get some “Plastruct” styrene structural shapes, partially for the station canopy at SFT as seen in one of the photos of #14 above and also for the Forney that I’m building,

This loco, the canopy support columns at San Fernandez and the bridge at Puerto should, between them, keep me busy over the weekend. And there’s still that Hunslet 2-6-2T on the back road at Cuarto Sheds to finish as well.